Two another employees of Estakada.pl gained the most recognized worldwide credential of professional project manager (PMP) granted by the largest association of project managers: Project Management Institute (PMI). Warm congratulations! There are 6 PMPs already in our company.

We are pleased to inform on signing contract with Deloitte Advisory and accomplishing e-learning course on implementing European Commission Directive on MiFID for Deutsche Bank. The course was based on source material provided by Deloitte.

We are pleased to inform about winning a competition and signing contract with the BGZ Bank to provide e-learning courses co-financed from the European Social Fund - Human Capital Operational Programme for the BGZ Bank employees in 2010-2012.

We are happy to inform on accomplishing induction e-learning course for newly employed workers of the PKN ORLEN - one of the largest businesses in Poland, one of Central Europe’s largest oil refiners.

We have developed innovative feature of streaming interactive, multimedia content implemented inside e-course screens. Thanks to this, our core product - e-learning courses - will be enriched with "lightweight" video clips or audio synchronized with animation. Opposite to solutions used for example on YouTube, based on flv format, our streaming component allows to put simple interactivities into streamed content.

We are proud to announce winning public tender and signing contract with Polish Agency for Enterprise Development (PARP) to carry out the PARP Academy project in 3 oncoming years.

Through the portal www.akademiaparp.gov.pl (only in Polish) this largest Polish e-learning project will train over 20 thousand participants - enterpreneurs and their employees from the SME sector (small and medium size enterprises). The project will provide 14 new e-learning business courses including e-courses on legal and tax issues.

The contract amounts 14,148M PLN (about 5M USD). The project will be carried out by consortium Estakada.pl-Betacom with Estakada.pl as a prime contractor. Betacom S.A. is an IT integrator, public company traded at the Warsaw stock exchange, in the project responsible for component of classroom courses for training institutions.

We are sure that continuing this project will be a significant impulse for development of e-learning in Poland as well as modern possibilities feasible through e-learning, like social learning and knowledge management.

Over 10 000 people completed free-of-charge e-learning course produced by Estakada.pl for the General Inspector of Financial Information. The course on Anti-Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing is being carried out under contract with the Polish Ministry of Finance, through the internet vortal started 31th March 2009 - the address www.giif.wortalszkoleniowy.pl (in Polish). The course completion is awarded with certificate. Number of participants makes the vortal one of the largest e-learning projects in Poland.

We are deploying a new competence center: small forms studio. The studio will be specialized in non-linear video editing and production and postproduction of podcasts and videocasts in totally controlled movie microstage. This will enrich our e-learning courses and other multimedia products with standard, easy-to-produce video scenes, optimized for web conditions.

We are pleased to inform about signing a contract and providing of e-learning training on sales accompanied by other multimedia products for the GE Capital Group/BPH Bank.

We are developing e-learning solutions for knowledge management. Our another product within this discipline - knowledge base - is a context search engine interconnected with rich-indexed e-learning content and resources. We are intensively using powerful possibilities of the SCORM and IMS standards.

Business customers interested in demonstration of the knowledge base are kindly invited to contact our customer relations department at knowledge-management(at)estakada.pl.

We are pleased to inform about signing a contract and express providing of product e-learning course for AEGON Towarzystwa Ubezpieczeń na Życie S.A. (life insurer).

The Columbus Portal successfully completed as confirmed by post-evaluation conducted by the European Commission. Thus it became a best practice, recommended for other e-learning projects. The objective of the project was a market validation of e-learning marketplace, where different content providers could offer their courses to the market. In three countries (Germany, Poland, the United Kingdom) 750 participants took part in carefully prepared pilot runs of the service. Survey research on the participants - and other experiences from this project - are valuable lessons for the future.

We've produced a unique strategy game on-line for the PARP Academy participants. The game simulates real business decisions in the controlled environment of a virtual market.

In this highly-interactive, engaging multimedia formula, the players are competing against each other as virtual businesses - acting individually or in groups. The players make investments, employ workers, try to gain the largest possible market share and to maximize their profits.

The "Star Courses" game is played entirely on-line, with optional support (mentoring, classroom workshop). The communication between players and major mechanisms of the game (virtual sales) are based on chat communication protocol. The game engine is based on the django/python framework. Also the scenery is engaging: designed with a lot of care for details, placed in a consistent virtual reality of a hyperspace ship mission to another galaxy. The players may experience references to popular movies like Matrix, Star Trek, Star Wars and the science-fiction literature by Stanislaw Lem.

The first edition of the game starts in the end of July 2009.

We are pleased to inform about signing a framework agreement and completing first project of e-learning courses for the BGZ Bank employees. The e-learning courses supported by mentoring are carried out via dedicated e-learning vortal www.bgz.wortalszkoleniowy.pl (only in Polish).

We are pleased to inform on signing the contract to carry out periodic courses on Occupational Safety & Health for the employees of Kredyt Bank, TUiR Warta (general insurer) oraz TUnŻ Warta (life insurances) - companies of the KBC Polska group. The e-learning courses for management and executive employees will be provided with helpdesking and administration through dedicated vortal at the address (only in Polish) www.kbcpolska.okresoweBHP.pl

Estakada.pl has taken an active part in the international conference in Zakopane Poland on combating money laundering and terrorism financing - new technology challenges - Central and Eastern Europe approach. The participants were government officials from Ministry of Finance from Poland and Ukraine, Council of Europe and US Department of Justice. Our presentation was dedicated to the newly started - on 31st March 2009 - training vortal with e-learning course on preventing money laundering and financing terrorism, provided for General Inspector of Financial Information - the responsible unit of Polish Ministry of Finance. The vortal (only in Polish) is available at the address www.giif.wortalszkoleniowy.pl

We are pleased to inform about signing a framework agreement with Commercial Union Polska for providing e-learning courses; the first project has already been completed.

We've created an extensive portal system to carry out complex e-learning service through training vortals. The service consists of elaborating dedicated e-learning courses, providing an e-learning platform on our servers, Internet connection (the ASP - Application Service Providing model) and mentoring - people assigned as responsible for carrying out training for appointed group of participants.

Thanks to the newly introduced service, our customers need no longer to invest in servers, Internet bandwidth, e-learning platforms, helpdesking and administering e-learning to make use of all the possibilities of the on-line courses.

We kindly invite potential business customers to contact our account managers complex-el-service(at)estakada.pl.

As of January 2009 the number of registered PARP Academy project participants hit 60 thousands. We notice a great interest from participants planning to start a new business - the project has been open for them since the beginning of December 2008.

We're pleased to announce accomplishing at a record pace the e-learning course "First Aid" for the portal Wrota Malopolski (Malopolska Gateway) under contract with the local authorities of the Malopolska Voivodeship (Urzad Marszalkowski Wojewodztwa Malopolskiego).

The course (only in Polish) is available at the portal website. Delivering the entire scope: from gaining source material and e-learning production to the launch at the opensource platform Moodle, took less than two weeks!

We are pleased to inform on signing the contract with the Polish Ministry of Finance for designing, 3-year hosting and administering e-learning course on "Preventing money laundering and financing terrorism". The on-line course is dedicated to financial institutions and groups specified in the Polish law. The course will be produced in 2008, the hosting will start in 2009.

Due to the growing market share of the Opera browser we have done a wide development and testing, making all the advanced features of our e-learning courses available also for the Opera users.

At the beginning of October 2008 we start recruiting users for the Columbus Portal pilot runs.

The Columbus Portal is an european e-learning marketplace performed within the contract with the European Comission. The project is carried out by the consortium of four companies from Germany, Poland and the United Kingdom and two German universities.

Estakada from the Polish part is responsible for currently delivered pilot runs.

The pilot runs will be conducted in October and November 2008 in the same time in Germany, Poland and the UK. Participants will pass selected by himself/herself e-learning course offered by the Portal. The courses in the pilot runs are free of charge - in return the participant fills evaluation questionnaires on such topics as the courses quality, portal, expected purchasing process etc.

All the Polish-spoken potential users willing to participate in this unique e-learning project are welcomed. Please contact our mentoring department - Ms Marta Wisniewska phone +48 22 5816 339 columbus(at)estakada.pl.

We're proud to announce accomplishing at record pace extensive program of dedicated, multimedia interactive e-learning courses for the employees of newly established Alior Bank.

The program of application and product-oriented e-courses carried out during the period of July-August 2008 exceeds 100 hours of sitting time.

Alior Bank has chosen Estakada.pl as performer of e-learning courses, most of the Bank courses is being done in this modern form.

Total value of purchase orders carried out within July-September 2008 exceeds 1 mln PLN (currently over 450 th USD).

The PARP Academy project has been prolonged once more - this time due to huge interest of participants and financial sources from the ESF operational programme Human Capital. Since launching the PARP Academy portal akademiaparp.gov.pl (available only in Polish) in November 2006 till June 2008 this unique worldwide and the largest Polish e-learning project gathered almost 45 thousands participants from the small and medium enterprises (SME). Despite fulfilling ambitious objectives the most important outcomes of the project comprise:

• recognized brand of the PARP Academy as the educational portal for SME offering business e-learning courses,
• involvement of remarkable percentage of SME operating in Poland, alike with the percentage of SMEs interested in distant training,
• outstandingly high completion rate (percentage of participants completing the e-learning course with a passing score compared to the total number of course-takers) at 30%.

The prolonged PARP Academy will cover several important improvements including new e-learning course on establishing own company. The PARP Academy is a frontline e-learning project of the Polish Agency for Enterprise Development PARP.

Prolonged PARP Academy is the first PARP-initiated project cofinanced by the ESF operational programme Human Capital.

We're pleased to inform Estakada.pl becomes Adobe Solution Partner (Silver Level). Our partnership in this global program hosted by Adobe will let us be even closer to the fast-growing mainstream technologies, crucial for the e-learning market.

We are pleased to communicate signing framework agreement with Alior Bank. Alior Bank - newly established Polish bank starting operational activity in 2008 and the largest recent investment in the Polish banking sector has chosen Estakada as the sole provider of e-learning courses and e-learning platform implementation services.

At the beginning of April 2008 the number of registered PARP Academy project participants from Polish micro, small and medium companies exceeded 35 thousands. Along with this, we achieve 30% completion rate (with the passing score) - it's a unique result in open e-learning projects.

We are pleased to inform about signing a framework agreement with EFG Eurobank Ergasias S.A. for providing e-learning courses for employees of Polbank EFG.

Estakada introduced new attractive functionality for work group based on the wiki idea (shared and multi-user edited web page). The functionality provides a possibility to carry out cooperative work by multiple, remote learning users. Optionally the role of tutor, trainer or consultant may be involved in the process of creating the work.

Thanks to the functionality remote users of e-learning courses can cooperate on the document, communicate, vote for the subject and the group name - all through the web browser. The editing process does not require any HTML knowledge. User-friendly interface is intuitional for people using popular office software.

The progress evaluation may be quantitative - automatic, based on the number of words and qualitative - carried out by the tutor who verifies the subject, structure and the work completeness.

The functionality is implemented in the PARP Academy project, led by Estakada. This valuable support tool is recommended for classroom, e-learning and blended learning courses also knowledge management systems. Interested? Contact us!.

German-British-Polish consortium of six companies and universities, from the Polish side Estakada.pl, signed contract with the European Union represented by the European Commission to contribute for the Columbus project. The project is performed under the framework of ETEN programme, dedicated to building information society in the EU countries.

The Columbus project objective is a market validation of the e-learning marketplace, where along the professional e-learning courses there will be enabled features of authoring, publishing and offering hobby e-courses on-line by individuals. The project is coordinated by German-British group of e-learning companies ILT, quoted on London stockmarket. The marketplace will be serviced by German opensource e-learning platform ILIAS. Estakada.pl is responsible for delivering professional e-learning courses and coordinating the largest part of the project scope covering pilot runs of the service.

The contract totals over 2,4 mln EUR. The project duration is 18 months.

Press release

Due to huge interest of participants the PARP Academy project has been prolonged till the end of June 2008. At the end of 2007 the number of the Academy participants exceeds 22 thousands. The project is a unique in the world initiative of free e-learning courses dedicated to entrepreneurs and employees from the sector of micro-, small and medium enterprises (SMEs). Within the project boundaries 10 internet courses have been created covering different topics of management and business knowledge and skills. The courses, dedicated to SMEs, are available through the portal www.akademiaparp.gov.pl (only in Polish), together with 0801 infoline with mentors and tutors. A country-wide promotional campaign has been carried out with press PR, regional workshops in 32 cities and loyality programme. Part of the scope was directed to training companies and educational institutions, covering class-room trainings on creation and administration of on-line courses.

Estakada was represented at the international conference "Decision Games in Business Education" organized by Wyzsza Szkola Biznesu - NLU on the 27th November 2007 in Nowy Sacz. The subject of our presentation was "Decision games in a real and a virtual world". Here you can find the full paper (PDF).

Due to dynamic business development we are moving the company premises. Since the 16 November 2007 the company will be located in Warsaw on the Grzybowska Street 80/82 (Kolmex building, V floor). The telephone number changes to +48 22 5816 300, fax +48 22 5816 301.

Through joining our so far two offices and significantly increasing office space, in a new, more comfortable place we will be providing even better courses and e-learning services for our customers.

In the last quarter 2007 we introduce three multimedia, interactive e-learning courses on management:

• Time management - training individual organizing techniques,
• Periodical appraisal - couse for managerial staff perfecting skills for preparation and carrying out the appraisal meeting within the management by objective program,
• Change management - orientation training explaining how to avoid typical problems in change management.

E-courses are available in Polish in open licenses. Don't hesitate to contact us and receive the offer .

We introduced the first in the world loyality program in open e-learning project. Participants of e-learning courses within the PARP Academy gain credit points while passing successive parts of the courses. After completing the entire courses the points may be exchanged into prizes like t-shirts, jars, caps etc. The objective of this program is increase of the PARP Academy market recognition.

To service the loyality program we created portal functionality of points accounting. The functionality enables also placing orders and tracking them until completion.

We are happy to inform on signing contract and accomplishing e-learning course on code of conduct and ethical standards in the AXA group

Two other employees of Estakada.pl gained the most recognized worldwide credential of professional project manager (PMP) granted by the largest association of project managers: Project Management Institute (PMI) with about 250 th. members worldwide. Warm congratulations!

We are happy to announce signing contracts with Telekomunikacja Polska (Polish Telecom) for creating and updating of e-learning courses on TP products. The total value of contract amounts 1,2M PLZ (0,5M USD).

Estakada.pl as the first in Poland introduces service of professional mentoring for the e-learning courses. Our mentors are carefully trained professionals with extensive knowledge of e-learning features, fluent in organizing and administering e-courses and - last but not least - in motivating e-participants using phone and e-mail. Mentors, supported by entirely digital call center, are servicing infoline 0-801 444 MSP (0-801 444 677) for the PARP Akademy. Six days every week, Monday to Saturday, from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.

We introduced new product line - e-learning support tools based on Adobe Flash Media Server. User with standard web browser with Flash Player can participate in such synchronous interactions as moderated chats, videochats or whiteboard (common drawing space). The tools can be implemented in the customer network or hosted.

We introduced to the market a new e-learning solution - printing certificates. The participant passing the course or its part is able to generate and print a certificate by himself or herself. The certificate confirms fulfilling the course passing criteria and is independent from the e-learning platform vendor, requires only SCORM conformance. Certificates are easy to use and very safe (tough to fake or unauthorised printing). Implementation may be immediate - based only on SCORM standard or integrated with external database systems, including possibility of centralised management by administrator/HR department etc.

Already 2000 participants from the SME sector (small and medium enterprises) took part in the PARP Academy e-learning training. The most popular are modules on SME company development. Average participant of the PARP Academy is a young male with higher education, coming from a city. Read the full article (PDF in English).

We are happy to inform on signing contract for adaptative e-learning course for BPH Bank S.A. The course concerning procedures and organization of BPH will be used for quick and effective adaptation to work of employees, including those newly hired. Like all estakada e-learning courses also this one will be attractive in form and will use e-learning best practices for effective training. The course will be placed on SAP Learning Solution e-learning platform.

On the 20th November 2006 "The PARP Academy" oficially opened for Small-and-Medium Enterprises. The Academy was initiated by the ceremonial workshop held in the Business Centre Club in Warsaw. Internet portal akademiaparp.gov.pl also started with two e-learning courses "How to develop my company? Management systems for SMEs" and "Debt vindication and liquidity management of SME", together with infoline of e-learning mentors (0-801 444 MSP), working from 8 am to 8 pm, from Monday to Saturday. All of it for micro-, small- and medium enterprises!

We are please to announce that estakada is working on international project to produce e-learning course for ING group, led by ING Slaski Bank. The course on quality management and Lean Six Sigma method will be delivered in Polish and in English. Estakada provides rich-multimedia, interactive e-learning course together with expert content support for the course as well.

We've developed a new method for switching multilingual content. Thanks to so prepared e-learning course participant may change the language while taking the lesson. It supports learning professional vocabulary and enhances creating a new class of e-learning courses in international projects.

We are proud to announce signing the contract with Polish Agency for Enterprise Development (PARP) to carry out the project "The PARP Academy". Within this largest Polish e-learning project it is expected that about 35 thousand participants - enterpreneurs and their employees from the SME sector (small and medium size enterprises) will be trained on management using e-learning. The project will deliver educational portal supported by the infoline of consultants and tutors servicing 10 large internet e-courses. There will be also regional workshops organized across the Poland. The contract amounts 14,2M PLN (4,7M USD). The project will be performed by consortium Estakada.pl-Betacom with Estakada.pl as a prime contractor. Partner of a consortium, Betacom S.A. is an IT integrator, public company traded at the Warsaw stock exchange, the sole distributor in Poland of e-learning platform Saba. Saba, leading LMS/LCMS technology worldwide, will be the e-learning platform for the PARP Academy.

Our employee, Ania Leszczynska, did her master's degree research under supervision of Estakada at the Warsaw School of Economics. The title of her research was "E-learning in development of enterprise employee competences". Ania researched e-learning in a few big Polish companies. Here (in Polish, pdf 350 kB) you may find the chapter with the results of her research.

We are happy to inform that estakada.pl represents Poland in international consortium coordinated by Bertelsmann AG. The aim of the consortium is to carry out a large, open e-learning project within the European eTEN program. Read more on eTEN program here.

Estakada's e-learning courses may be recognized at a glance thanks to the 3D models' animations. Our virtual actors may play any scene. We have been using and developing the 3D-animation technique for over a year as it has became a standard in our courses.

We are happy to inform of signing a contract for producing e-learning courses on complex evaluation and development of employees competencies for TP (Polish Telecom). The courses include also the elements of MBO (management by objectives) system.

As a result of dynamic growth of our company we are looking for instructional designers and computer graphicians (with Polish as their native language). If you are a smiled enthusiast (or know some) and want to work with other ones at estakada.pl please go to career where you may find details on new jobs opportunities in March 2006.

We are happy to inform on signing contract for e-learning course on IT security for TP (Polish Telecom). The course is produced in cooperation with IT security department of TP.

Estakada e-learning courses provide advanced analysis of text from the user. With patterns based on regular expressions our courses have "intelligence" while analysing different options of answers put into browser.

We are happy to inform on signing contract for adaptative e-learning course for Kredyt Bank S.A. The course concerning procedures and organization of KB will be used for quick and effective adaptation to work of newly hired employees.

We have established a testing centre for simulating real-live WAN network conditions. Our e-learning courses will be now tested and adjusted to different situations faced by Internet users like changing bandwidth.

We are happy to inform on signing long-term contract for e-learning courses on products of TP (Polish Telecom). The courses will be used for training the employees of TP sales departments.

Our e-learning courses provide new possibility to write and develop statements using user's own phrases. The new "memo" interactive feature enhances our potential for soft skills training.

We have signed a contract with National Bank of Poland for creation of e-learning courses, presentations and decision games for the Economic Education Portal NBPortal.pl. Amount of works is almost 1 mln PLN (about USD 300 thousands). Press release

In July we have signed an intention letter regarding co-operation with SAP Poland. Our e-learning courses support e-learning platform SAP Learning Solution offered by SAP.

We are developing e-learning course with assessment tests on the data safety for Warta S.A. - large Polish insurance company.

We accomplished e-learning course on Compliance with case studies for Raiffeisen Bank Poland S.A. The course has been launched on the Oracle iLearning platform.

We have developed a new e-learning course of project management consistent with new standards from the Project Management Institute (PMP®). In lots of interesting case studies participant learns on typical mistakes of project management in any branch. The course is available on the basis of non-exclusive licence. Should you be interested in the course, please contact us.

We have developed several new, unique features in our e-learning courses, among them interactive educational assistant, panoramic pictures and splash screens (fast preview of animation during loading).

We accomplished a new course on principles of running an ecological farm for advisory centres for agriculture coordinated by Centre of Agriculture and Rural Development in Brwinow.

It is our great pleasure and privilege to inform that during 2003-2004, having been contracted by Comarch, we accomplished seven e-learning courses for Economic Education Portal of National Bank of Poland. The courses are: "The economy around us", "EURO getting closer", "Credits for You", "Corporate Financial Analysis", "Monetary History of Poland", "How to invest", and "Banking".

We succeeded with the ARiMR project (Agency for Restructuring and Modernisation of Agriculture). The scope of work covered: numerous courses for IACS operators emulating operations within the actual interface of the system, exam tests, implementation and installation, training for administrators.

We have moved to our new premises. The new office is also located in central Warsaw, in Prosta 69 Street (Prosta 69 Business Centre). In the new comfortable office we shall create yet better courses.

At record pace estakada accomplished a large e-learning undertaking for the National Advisory Centre for Agriculture and Rural Development. We developed and implemented two sets of courses (over fifteen hours each) on quality standards in agricultural production. Estakada set up a system of local content repositories in order to balance the bandwith load. The courses have been taken by over 800 advisors of several advisory centres all over Poland.

We have developed our own "engine" for producing multi-medial presentations. Our product is able to run streaming of separate animated slides, while displaying their duration and loading time. Navigation works for simple "forwards-backwards" presentations as well as for hierarchical menu.

Implementation of quality management system in accordance with international standards ISO 9001:2000 has begun. It is expected to be finalized in first half of 2005. We look forward to experience the new system's ability to further systematise our processes (thou sometimes we doubt whether it is possible to go any further) as well as confirming the high quality of our organisation.

Two students of Polish-Japanese Institute of Information Technology (a technical university) have won a salaried traineeship at estakada by drafting the most interesting e-learning course.

In co-operation with CISCO Systems we have conducted a series of tests of Estakada courses within network environment using Cisco CDN solution (Content Delivery Networks). The solution is used to optimise bandwith load through a system of local, centrally managed content repositories. The tests shall enable Estakada courses to support CDN technology utilisation.

We have developed a new training component - interface emulator (EI). It enables fast production of courses on the basis of any given software application, with use of screenshots (static bitmaps) and active formants (with described functions), such as buttons, menus, check boxes etc.

Today Estakada managers have become certified project managers. We all worried about them a little, but they scored very well. PMP® (Project Management Professional) is a high esteemed certificate by PMI® (Project Management Institute), the most excellent project managers are awarded.

Estakada-ComArch consortium have won a tender for producing an e-learning application for Agency for Restructuring and Modernisation of Agriculture (ARiMR). Courses will be placed on Oracle iLearning.

See the advert we placed in last edition of DATAGROUP special report "Trainings' quality standards 2003"[1] [2] [3] [4]

We have developed an exciting course "Negotiation games" for Polkomtel S.A., using our new decision games engine. The course has been implemented as non-exclusive licence. Should you be interested in the course, please contact us.

Decision games engine is ready! Using a "decision matrix" approach we are able to design games of expotential complexity of scenario, while levelling production costs. Game authors are facilitated to control the matrix field and events sequence.

Thanks to co-operation with YDP we have adjusted our courses to their "LEO" LMS. Estakada courses also support tracking in SCORM and AICC standards (AICC two-direction).

Motivating module is ready! Built-in lesson statistics available on demand, adaptive courses - are some of the features of the system. Course interface enables learner to look at her / his progress - it's not necessary to withdraw and check the status in LMS reports. The course itself helps in completing and passing a lesson, by suggesting and automatically creating a repetition path adjusted to individual results of a learner. How does it work? - here you can find an example, just click on the owl icon.

We have successfully completed our biggest project so far! 160 hours of ready content. 50-person team plus numerous external experts, film actors and staff, who produced 45 min of interesting scenes. The results are four absorbing educational courses.